West One Second Charge Team is making a number of changes to their product range with effect from Monday 10th October. They will also be making some significant changes to their affordability assessment.
Good News – 5 yr fixed rates are back!
They are delighted to re-introduce a range of 5 yr fixed rates available across their residential and buy-to-let second charge product range to meet the demand from borrowers who require certainty of mortgage payments in a rising interest environment.
Rates start from 8.99% and are detailed in their latest product guide.
Introducing their West One SVR Tracker product
They have rebranded their variable rate product to make it clearer that the rates will change in line with their standard variable rate with rates starting from 6.25%.
LTV Reductions
They are reducing their LTV’s by 5% across their range of residential second charge mortgage range. Maximum LTV’s are now as follows:
- Apex 0 – Maximum LTV of 80%
- Apex 1 – Maximum LTV of 75%
- Apex 2 – Maximum LTV of 70%
The maximum LTV for buy to let second charges will remain unchanged at 75% LTV
For cases affected by their LTV changes, they will honour pipeline cases provided they reach the offer stage by Friday 4th November. They may carry out additional checks on higher LTV loans in view of the expectation that property prices will be adversely affected.
Full details of their updated range can be downloaded here:
Affordability Assessment
As communicated last week they are constantly reviewing their approach to affordability and as such, they are making some significant changes to their stress test to take into account the expectations around interest rate increases.
They will also however now only apply a stress test to the existing first charge mortgage if this is a variable rate mortgage or is currently on a fixed rate with less than 3 years remaining. If you confirm there is at least 3 years remaining on the fixed-rate mortgage, evidence will be required.
A separate bulletin will be issued with further details on what you need to do to update affordability assessments for both residential and buy-to-let second charges.
They appreciate this has been a turbulent few weeks for the mortgage market resulting in increased communications across the industry as a whole, but they are committed to offering a competitive range of second-charge products and their helpful broker support and sales team are on hand to support you.